In some areas from USA, Mexico and other countries where cacti abound, it is very common to use the Green-Flesh from some of them—mainly from the famous Nopal-Cactus, also called “Nopal” or “prickly pear”—for different applications. Nopal-Cactus is considered a great food which can be prepared in different ways. The scope of its utility is not limited to food preparation. This vegetable is also considered a great natural medicine against different health issues (i.e. diabetes treatments, where it has been demonstrated that this vegetable is capable to decrease blood sugar in people with this problem) due to the nutrients, vitamins and minerals it contains.
It is also well known that the Nopal-Cactus is naturally protected against hostile environments and predators as it is capable to create its own Pointy Thorns which make it difficult to access to their edible part (Green-Flesh). Logically, for humans, the challenge of removing those Thorns is a lot more difficult than peeling a normal fruit or vegetable. For this reason, a variety of tools have been developed over the decades to assist humans in the Thorns' Removal task and the preparation of the Nopal-Cactus for cooking/eating or medical applications. The most basic tool for roughly performing this task is a regular kitchen knife. It is proved that a kitchen knife is inefficient for this purpose because the shape of the blade, which is normally straight, doesn't fit the concave areas very well. Therefore, the knife needs to be manipulated in different ways making the cutting process take a long time. This method is also very tedious (for someone who does NOT master this method it can take up to 10 minutes to remove the Thorns) and most of the time it results in the waste of a significant proportion of the edible part (Green-Flesh) of the vegetable. Besides this, the knife must be regularly sharpened to maintain its utility.
Another popular method for Nopal-Cactus preparation is the utilization of a common peeler (such as a potato peeler). Not being specifically designed for plants/vegetables having Thorns, utilization of a common Peeler is highly inefficient (worse than the kitchen knife) as the next lines explain: When the user is about to start the Thorns' Removal process, the peeler's cutting blade is not located flush to the NopalCactus due to a gap that is always created between the vegetable and the base were the blade is mounted, forcing the user to apply great force against the Nopal to barely cut a few Thorns. Additionally, those movements create cuts in the Nopal-Cactus surface causing its drool (viscous liquid that characterizes the cactus) to come out in excess, hindering the handling of the vegetable during the Thorns' Removal operation. Moreover, the blade on these cutters is also generally straight, rendering it impractical to remove the Thorns from surfaces that are not partially flat.
In view of these difficulties, a variety of different devices have been developed specifically to peel, clean, and/or remove the Thorns from Nopal-Cactus or other kinds of cacti. That is the case of US Patent Application number 20090199414 A1, which relates to an elongated cactus cleaning tool comprising a handle and a cleaning section at one end of the handle for cleaning a section of cactus. The effectiveness of such a design to perform the desired action is unclear, since the blade is still straight making it difficult to operate over curved surfaces (same case as with the kitchen knife). Besides, this device is made of at least two pieces (the handle and the main body) making it more expensive and complicated to manufacture compared with a Cactus Cleaning Tool made in one piece. Additionally, as its sharp edge tends to get dull with usage and wear, this device should be frequently sharpened, similarly to the case of the kitchen knife described before.
The same can be said about U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,062,210A and 5,196,036A. These two patents describe tools for dethroning cacti through the use of blades or edged body structures which are at the same time attached to supporting members or handles. These irregular complex shapes make the tools (apart from difficult and expensive to manufacture), clumsy and uncomfortable to handle, clean and maintain, and unsuitable for storing them together with the remaining kitchen utensils, for example in a kitchen spoons cabinet or drawer. More importantly, to keep them operative, the blades or edged body structures of this kind of utensils should be frequently sharpened as well. As a final remark with respect to the three above-mentioned patented devices, it is appropriate to highlight that none of them can be used as slicer to complete the preparation of the NopalCactus once the Thorns have been removed, making it necessary for the user to employ a separate tool (such as a kitchen knife) to perform the final operation of cutting the vegetable into small squares or small stipes for its final consumption.
The most practical solution available so far to prepare Nopal-Cactus (considering the difficulties described in the previous lines) is probably a home-made perforated spoon. This device is usually made as a craft by the user, by drilling a circular hole in the Head portion of a regular spoon and then sharpening the circumference of that hole using a second tool. This curved inner edge is effective for peeling the Nopal and the tool can be easily stored in a cabinet together with other spoons. However, due to its shape, this tool is not useful for removing the Thorns along of the edges and corners of the Nopal-Cactus leaf (this second operation is necessary to prepare the vegetable for consumption), meaning that the user needs to utilize a second tool, such as a knife, when using this perforated spoon, thus increasing the preparation and cleaning time. In addition, to maintain the inner circumference sharp enough to perform the peeling function, the tool needs to be regularly sharpened (same case as kitchen knife and common peeler).
In sum, the need of developing a simple hand tool able to quickly and safely remove all Thorns from a Nopal-Cactus (including the lateral and corner Thorns) without utilization of additional tools (such as kitchen knife), with minimum waste of the edible portion of the vegetable, capable to achieve the removal process quicker than the previous described options and to do it at a low cost, is still unsatisfied. For this reason, we believe that providing a novel and effective Nopal-Cactus Thorns Remover which consists only of one piece, is affordable, easy to clean, easy to store and easy to maintain and in particular, one in which the user wouldn't need to use a second tool to remove the Thorns completely and to then cut the vegetable in small squares or stripes as traditionally done once Thorns are removed, fulfills the above-mentioned so far unresolved function, and therefore advances the field. Even more so, if this tool does not need to be sharpened in order to keep its utility for a long time.